North Meadow practice to move to MCH campus

Hospital officials cite cost efficiencies as the motivation

PETERBOROUGH — Doctors Annika Brown and Scott Jaynes will be moving to a new office this fall, relocating their North Meadow Family Health practice from a building on Route 202 to new space in the Bond Wellness Center building at Monadnock Community Hospital.

“The hospital owns the practice. We own the building,” Jaynes said on Monday. “The hospital decided to move the practice back to the hospital campus.”

The two doctors, along with Siobhan Benham, an advanced practice registered nurse who works with them, will moving once a currently unused area on the second floor of the Wellness Center is renovated.

In a July 3 letter to hospital employees, Cyndee McGuire, the president and CEO of the hospital, wrote that the decision to move the practice came about after an evaluation by the hospital’s Board of Trustees, who “carefully reviewed the significant, annual benefit realized by the practice’s relocation to our campus.”

McGuire noted that the relocation would mean easier access to the hospital’s specialty services for patients of Brown and Jaynes.

A letter to the doctors’ patients will be going out this week.

Phil McFarland, a spokesperson for the hospital, said Wednesday that the change is part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs.

“Every hospital in this country is evaluating their position on services they provide to identify efficiencies, revenue enhancements and cost savings, while at the same time improving quality,” McFarland wrote in an email. “We at MCH are doing the same. We’re examining every potential opportunity to be as cost conscious as possible, so that we can continue to provide excellent patient care for our community in the future. We at MCH recognize the enormous contribution that North Meadow Family Practice has made to our community and we believe this move helps us as an organization to continue the long-standing service they provide to our patients.”

Jaynes and Brown, who are married, have owned the building at 154 Hancock Rd. since 2005, when they renovated the space and opened North Meadow Family Health. The medical practice was purchased by Monadnock Community Hospital in 2011 and since then Jaynes and Brown have leased the building to the hospital.

Now the 2,296-square-foot building with distinctive red barnboard siding has been put on the market. It’s listed on the Peterson’s Real Estate website, with an asking price of $479,500.